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ANNUAL ADDRESS 



KKFOKE THF; 



lHiti0jj0jjliic mxA (!{ii||hniiliaii 



SOCIETIES 



OF THE 



SOUTH CAEOLINA COLLEGE 



BY THE 

KiGHT Rev. Stephen Elliott, 



Bisliup of Georij'ia. 



DELIVERED DECEMBER 4, 1859. 






CHARLESTON : 

PRO" TED BY WALKER, EVANS & CO. 

o Broad and 101 East Bay Streets. 

1860. 




5037 



ANNUAL ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



d{Iaiti0S0|liit and dJiiphradiaii; 



SOCIETIES 



OF THE 



SOUTH CAEOLINA COLLEGE. 



BY THE 

Right Rev. Stephen Elliott, 

Bishop of Georcfia. 



DELIVERED DECEMBER 4, 1859. 



CHAELESTOIST: 

STEAM POWER PRESS OF WALKER, EVANS & CO. 
No. 3 Broad Street. 
1860. 






-1 ' 



ADDRESS. 

Gentlemen of the Clariosophic and Euphradian Societies : 

Four and thirty years ago, I took my place beliind tliis 
mystic stand, to deliver my valedictory to tlie Society I was 
then leaving, and my farewell to college life and college 
friends. And as I stand here once again, memories come 
clustering thick upon me, and forms rise from their graves 
and throng around me — forms of venerable men, of loved 
companions. They bring with them the images of happy 
days, days that have vanished before me. Since then, a 
generation has passed away, and the friendly throng which 
greeted me is dispersed, and nearly all who heard me then, 
if living still, stray scattered through the world. Those 
whom I reverenced with a sacred veneration, and admired 
with a boy's enthusiasm, and looked at as a child looks at 
the stars, have gone to their graves, and strangers fill their 
places. And my own familiar companions, those by whose 
side I expected to battle with life, and by whose hands I 
hoped to be carried to my grave, are drifting hither and 
thither upon the tides of life, and in the storm of action. 
At such an hour as this, friends of my youth, I cannot 
pass you by. I must lay my tribute, however unworthy, 
upon your honored dust, and weave another leaf, however 
humble, into the chaplet of your fame. 

A virtuous man never knows the good he does by his 
example and his intercourse. It is diffused around him, 
like perfume scattered on the air, conferring joy and 



blessings upon all wlio approach Mm. And while his con- 
temporaries feel this power of goodness, the young are 
moulded by it. Upon them, if he condescends to make 
them his friends, he deeply impresses himself, and leads 
them on, insensibly, to virtue and to honor.^ Such a debt 
as this do I, with many others for whom I dare to speak, 
owe to one, who received me when I came here, as his own 
child, and guided me by his counsel, and honored me with 
his friendship. 'Tis true he was my father's friend, the 
hereditary friend of my family, but that w^as not his only 
motive. The venerable De Saussure was the friend of all 
the young, and he cherished them for the comfort of his 
own old age, and for the honor of the commonwealth. 
He made them ever welcome to his home and to his table. 
And that home was the centre of high refinement, of prac- 
tical virtue, of elegant acquirement. At his table were 
always to be found the honored of the land, himself one of 
the most honored, a pattern of courtly breeding, combin- 
ing most happily in himself all that became a Chancellor, 
the manners of the gentleman, the reading of the man of 
letters, the learning of the lawyer. His venerable form rises 
before me now, polished, courteous, lighted with the smile 
which ever greeted the young, and made honorable by the 
hoary head of wisdom and of righteousness. His influence 
is still living in all who came within his circle, and his 
character is the proud inheritance of the State. 

Around this fine specimen of the Carolina judge, there 
circled a society of which any town might have been 
proud — a society of gentlemen, of scholars, of lawyers, of 
statesmen. When you brought together such men as the 
I^otts, and Cooper, and Henry, and Preston, and the 
Taylors, and Harper, and McCord, and Blanding, and the 
Elmores, it was a body of no ordinary men that jou had 



assembled. Large scliolarsliip, diversified learning, breadtli 
of comprehension, and brilliancy of utterance, were com- 
bined in them to a remarkable degree. They gave the 
tone to the social life of the town, and it was reflected 
npon the young men then preparing for the struggle of 
life. Well do I remember the influence these men exerted 
over me by the high standard of learning which they ever 
maintained, and by the value which they placed upon 
culture and knowledge. Of all these but one remains 
still lingering upon the stage, as if to show the young, who 
had not the felicity of knowing that race of men, in what 
mould their fathers had been cast. My tongue cannot 
express the charm which has always hung around the 
name of Preston, the charm to the young, the charm to 
the people, the charm to admiring senates. It demands 
his own felicitous language, ^one but the swan can 
sing his own dying note. 

It was a memorable period in Carolina's history, when 
the men who had covered her early days with glory were 
just passing away, and those who have illustrated her later 
annals were risins: into eminence. Sumter and the Pinck- 
neys were not yet dead. The boys who had been horsed 
at Westminster, and the lawyers who had studied in the 
Temple, had not quite disappeared. The bold riders of 
Lee's legion still lived to fight their battles o'er again. 
The men who had stood shoulder to shoulder with ]\Iarion 
and Davie were yet lingering on the stage. The statesmen 
who had pledged their lives and sacred honors to inde- 
pendence were still fresh in the memories of men. Around 
them had sprung up a crowd of statesmen, of orators, of 
soldiers, who were crowning their State with a reputation 
that has never been surpassed. There was a moment 
when the Union seemed to rest upon Carolina, and that a 



moment of deep peril, when she had just, for the second 
time, grappled with the victorions power of our fatherland. 
Gailkird, at that moment, presided over the Senate ; Cheves 
filled the chair of the House of Representatives ; Calhoun, 
Lowndes, and Williams were at the head of the all-import- 
ant Committees of Foreign Affairs, of Ways and Means, 
of the ^lilitarj arm. Pinckney commanded the Southern 
army. Jackson had just laid the foundation of his fame 
hy his Indian campaigns, and was girding on his 
sword that he might grapple with the heroes of the 
Peninsula. It was a proud moment for our little State. 
It was a remarkable combination of intellectual strength 
and moral firmness. And it was not to terminate with 
that generation. Wlien they died, or were called to fill 
higher offices in the gift of a grateful country, they made 
room for men second only to themselves. When Lowndes 
yielded up his pure spirit, Hamilton took his place, and 
although coming before the country under that great dis- 
advantage, soon filled the public e^^e. Drayton and Legare 
were not unworthy successors of Cheves in the representa- 
tion of Charleston. Smith and Hayne did not permit her 
banner to be lowered in the Senate. McDuffie stood 
unrivalled for the earnestness of his enthusiasm, for the 
closeness of his reasoning, for the power of his philippics. 
Davis and Preston cast around her solid fame the glitter of 
wit and the brilliancy of oratory. And these who stood so 
proudly in the nation's eye were but a part of the highly 
cultivated men who grew up simultaneously within her 
borders. Many whose names are scarcely known to this 
generation, accomplished gentlemen, profound lawyers, 
men of letters, abounded everywhere. Who that ever sat 
at a dinner-table with him can forget the brilliant talk, the 
bitter sarcasm, the keen analysis of Thomas Rhett Smith ? 



Wlien did there ever breathe a more gallant and accom- 
plished gentleman, "sans peur et sans reproche," than 
Keating Lewis Simons? The Union has not produced a 
more profound interpreter of the Constitution than Robert 
Turnbull. The State was literally overflowing with m.en, 
any one of whom was a son of whom his mother might 
w^ell have been proud. 

Whence came these successive generations of cultivated 
and high-bred men ? Has N^ature her caprices as well as 
m.an? Is she more prolific of greatness at one era than at 
another? Does she travail with genius at one period, and 
then pause to recruit her strength at another? 'Tis true 
that distinguished men in the history of the world have 
come in groupes, and w^e have classified them into ages. 
We speak conventionally of the age of Pericles, of the 
Augustan age, of the age of the Medici, of the age of 
Elizabeth, of the age of IS'apoleon, and we are inclined 
to ascribe the contemporaneous appearance of so many 
remarkable men to some peculiar felicity of the times. 
But is this so? Has not this sudden outburst of genius 
been rather the culmination of a long course of careful 
culture, or the creation of some master-spirit, which has 
kindled into rapid development the latent powers of the 
mind and of the heart? i^apoleon, to take the age nearest 
our times for an illustration, created its greatness by the 
magical power of his will. AVlien he first appeared in the 
army of the Republic, she had been beaten at every point, 
and it was hard to say on which side military genius was 
most lacking, on that of the democratic French or the 
monarchical allies. But how rapidly his eagle eye detected 
latent genius all around him, and how surely he developed 
it in every branch of the public service. Consummate 
generals, learned civilians, distinguished savans, world- 



8 

renowned mathematicians and physicists, came forth at 
once, as if the.j Avere aurox&ovscf. Was not all this genius in 
existence before ^N'apoleon forced it to unfold itself, and 
yield its glories to the uses of man? And should it not 
have remained dormant, had he not been made the instru- 
ment of starting from their enchanted sleep these' warriors, 
who sprang, full-armed, into the arena to do battle for law, 
for science, for intellectual culture? This analysis is the 
one nearest to us, and it is the key to all like mysteries. 
It is not always an individual who creates; it is just as 
frequently a principle or a discovery. But whatever may 
be the exciting cause, it convinces us that there are no 
such necessities as ages of dullness. An equal share of 
intellectual power is, most probably, in the world at all 
times. It only needs a sufficient cause to bring it into 
play ; some stimulus that will awake into earnest competi- 
tion all the mind that there is among a people. At one 
period, the wand of disenchantment is placed in the hands 
of an individual, a Pericles, an Augustus, one of the 
Medici. At another period, the awakening spell is uttered 
by a voice issuing from the graves of genius or of inspira- 
tion, as when Italy started from her degradation at the 
disinterment of Greek letters, and the enslaved mind of 
Europe burst its chains at the word of the everlasting 
Grospel. In one age, genius is stirred up by some great 
invention like that of printing, and in another by some 
mortal struggle such as that in which England was engaged 
for her constitutional rights, or the colonies for their inde- 
pendence. But these are exceptional instances, and we 
must find the incentives of ordinary occasions in the influ- 
ence of a high standard of excellence and in the rough 
nursing of necessity. When Sir William EoUett, who died 
just when his great abilities and large legal acquirements 



9 

were beginning to be appreciated, — too early, alas, for liis 
own fame and his country's reputation — was asked whether 
he was not hopeless of success, when he looked above 
him at the crowd of learned men who filled to overflowing 
the Bar and the Bench, his memorable answer was, "I fear 
not those ; they stimulate me by their example and their 
attainments. The men I fear are the hungry pack at my 
heels." And he was right. A high standard before you, 
a stern necessity behind you, will bring out a development 
of which neither an individual nor a nation has any con- 
ception. 

And these were the causes which produced such succes- 
sive generations of cultivated men in our Carolina. They 
had before them always the very highest models. The 
gentlemen of this State who went so ardently and gener- 
ously into the struggle for independence were not only 
statesmen and soldiers, but they were scholars. Many of 
them had been trained in the best schools of Europe, when 
education in Europe was an uncommon thing. Some of 
them had grown up in the highest society which England 
afforded. They gathered libraries, they collected works of 
art, they lived in the style of the gentlemen of their father- 
land. One of the Quincys, of Massachusetts, who visited 
Charleston in one of the years which immediately preceded 
the outbreak of the Revolution, speaks, in some of his 
letters, of the polite culture and luxury of Charleston, 
as surpassing anything he had seen. "This colony,'* 
writes he, "is the petted colony of the Crown, and such is 
her Avealth, and attachment to England, that I fear she will 
scarcely join in the struggle for independence." This 
refinement and culture were handed down, and worked 
themselves deeply into the sentiment of the State. They 
grew to be the required conditions of success in life, and 
no one was bold enough to fall short of them. Before a 



10 

man could take his place among the leaders of public 
opinion, he must approve himself to be not only a man of 
talent, but a man of honor; to be not only stored with 
learning, but well furnished with integrity and politeness. 
I do not say that there was not, in many cases, a very 
mistaken view of honor, and a substitution' of mere 
manners for the true refinement of the gentleman; but 
making all allowance for this, there was a tone which was 
opposed to meanness of every kind. And out of these 
elements there sprang a manly independence of thought, a 
frank avowal of opinion, a fearless meeting of responsibility, 
a stern requirement of truth in the individual, which gave 
to this intellectual culture its highest finish. It was not an 
individual character merely, it was a State character, and 
proud am I to say, she yet bears it, and may she perish ere 
she stain her spotless escutcheon with any dishonor. 

But besides this lofty standard of excellence, there was 
the stimulus of a goading necessity. ]^o States sufiered 
more in the revolutionary struggle than did the Carolinas, 
and our wealthiest citizens came out of the war utterly 
impoverished. The finest estates had been devastated, the 
laborers of our fields had been scattered, fire and sword 
had done their work of evil, and desolation met the eye on 
every side. But although exhausted, our people were not 
disheartened, and with a becoming energy they labored to 
retrieve their fallen fortunes. Cruel poverty was upon 
them ; a poverty more cruel because it was unaccustomed, 
and they must give themselves at once to earnest study, 
not for fame, but for position. Out of this necessity, came 
the men who bore her banner so high in our second 
struggle for existence. They entered upon their profes- 
sions to grapple with men who had studied with Mansfield 
and the Scotts, or to meet upon the fioor of the legislature 



11 

tlie compeers of Jefferson, and Hamilton, and Jay, and 
the elder Adams. To succeed, they must struggle; to 
struggle with any chance of equality, they must furnish 
themselves; to furnish themselves, they must study as 
men study when bitter hunger presses them, or passionate 
ambition goads them on. And this was the secret of the 
abounding excellence which exhibited itself in every quar- 
ter of the State. 

This inheritance of a hio;h culture and an unstained 
integrity is yours, young gentlemen. It has made the name 
of Carolinian honorable everpvhere. "Wherever you may 
be, when you name this as your State, you are expected to 
be a man of culture, of honor, and of refinement. And I 
rejoice to say, that so far, expectation has not been often 
disappointed. But I fear me that the spirit of the age has 
been working upon my dear old mother, and has somewhat 
sapped the stern principles which have so long distinguished 
her; that a fast age has been tempting her to try to be fast 
likewise; that the "viginti anuorum lucubrationes " have 
got to be out of fashion; that an early reputation is 
more coveted than a permanent one; that smartness and 
readiness of wit are more cultivated than deep learning 
and patient thought. If so, then farewell to all your 
greatness, for you are not great in territorial surface, 
nor great in population, nor great in representation, nor 
great in wealth. In all these things, many of your sister 
States are far, very far, before you. You are great in the 
past, because your fathers were highly cultured men; 
men who esteemed whatever was elevated and refined; 
men who compared not themselves among themselves, and 
were satisfied, but measured themselves by the literary 
standard of the world. And you must be great in the future 
by the like means. It is your only hope. High intellectual 



12 

and moral attainments depend not upon territorial surface. 
Attica was not larger than a few of joiir districts ; Tuscany 
is a mere strip of territory at tlie foot of the Appenines ; 
the great German universities have sprung up out of 
kingdoms and dukedoms, which should have those titles 
only hy courtesy ; England herself, with her vast resources 
and her centuries of literary fame, is no larger than my 
adopted State. Although you occupy hut an inconsiderable 
space upon the map of the world; although your popula- 
tion is but limited, and is not likely very much to increase, 
yet you have that from the past which can lead you on to a 
greatness higher than you have yet attained. It is useless . 
for you to enter upon the race of physical greatness ; you 
have neither the position nor the taste for it. Your inher- 
itance, and your gifts should follow your inheritance, is 
that of refinement, of culture, of high integrity — the noblest 
inheritance a people could desire. You must continue to 
be great as your fathers were, or you will not be great at 
all ; great in statesmanship, great in oratory, great in the 
philosophy of law and government, great in council. The 
cast of your mind — for there is a national as well as an 
individual mind — is not suited to a fast age. The mind of 
my dear native land, if I iiiaj presume to speak of that 
which I have looked at from an inward and an outward 
experience, is an analytical mind, earnest in its purposes, 
ever searching after principles, and, ^^ithal, severe in its 
taste. Reality and truth are what you care for, and these, 
if earnestly followed after, will carry you to the very loftiest 
attainments in letters and in art. 

And if any people ever needed the very highest 
culture, it is we, the people of the South. We 
need it not only for our practical defence, but for the 
maintenance of our position among the nations of the 



13 

eartli. Tlie time has passed wlien a people might 
wrap itself up in the consciousness of its integrity, and 
brave the world. In former days each nation stood 
apart, and, when it was separated by distance from 
another, cared but little for its opinion. But now the 
whole world is so knit together by the interests of 
connnerce, by the annihilation of distance, by the rapid 
transmission of news, by the incessant circulation of 
thought, that its judgment can be concentrated upon 
any people with fearful rapidity and terrible power. It 
is no longer possible to keep without the sphere of the 
world's influence — ^to build a Chinese wall around our 
peculiarities. AVe are in the ^^'orld, and of the world- 
The discoveries of physical science have placed us there, 
whether we choose to be or not, and all we do, and all we 
are, we are and do "before all Israel and before the Sun." 
It is idle to say that Ave care nothing for man's opinion. 
AVe must care for it ; every man of true sensibility feels 
that he is obliged to care for it. ISTo one is indifi:erent 
about being under the ban of the world. And our posi- 
tion is, just now, a most peculiar one. We are connected 
by race, by color, by language, by literature, by a common 
Christianity, with the best toned and cultured people of 
the earth, but because we maintain the institutions of our 
fathers, that world is attempting to sink us to a lower level 
than themselves. And we are playing most successfully 
into their hands. K we earnestly desired to throw away 
all our privileges, we could not better do it than by the 
course we are pursuing. We are permitting all our wealth, 
which are the sinews of intellectual as well as of physical 
warfare, to flow unresistingly into their hands. We are 
willing to derive all our culture, of Avhatever kind, from 
them, and thus acknowledge our dependence. We take. 



14 

like passive cliildren, their publications, and feed our young 
upon them, even though the deadliest poison of infidelity 
and moral corruption be mingled in them. We build, up 
their marts of business, their schools of learning, their 
resorts of fashion and of health, and permit our own to 
languish and to die. And when we have done all this, the 
thanks we get are taunts for our lack of culture, are curses 
upon an institution which is obliged to bear the brunt of 
our folly and our indifference. 

How is this condition of things to be remedied ? Its 
solution is the simplest in the world. By keeping our 
wealth at home among ourselves, by circulating it in the 
channels of our own enterprises, by covering our land 
with the materials of culture, by supplying our young 
with the apparatus of learning, by training our sons to the 
pursuit of specialties, by sternly determining so to work 
our advantages as that they shall advance our own glory 
and vindicate our position. And all this can we do with- 
out injury or even offence to anybody, for it is only in 
accordance with the declaration of the Bible, which tells 
us, ''But if any provide not for his own, and especiall}^ 
for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and 
is worse than an infidel." And what is true of the 
individual, is true of the State, which is the common 
father of us all. "Where are we to look, but to ourselves ? 
Upon whom to depend, but upon our own wisdom and 
the God of justice ? 

And we occupy the very proudest position for high cul- 
ture that a people can occupy. Struggle as the nations of 
the earth may, we have them, if but true to ourselves, 
within our control. For we not only possess that portion 
of the earth, the temperate zone, which gives us a climate 
and a soil securing to us the most indispensable staples of 
food and clothing for the world, but we have an arrange- 



15 

ment of labor, whicli classifies society in the way best 
calculated for intellectual cultivation. We are not called 
upon to labor ourselves, but simply to superintend labor. 
And that labor is congregated in large masses, and is em- 
ployed in a familiar and well-arranged routine, so that a 
personal supervision by the master is required only at 
intervals. A planter can pursue his inclination for study 
or travel, for reading or art, for any topic which he may 
choose to investigate, without any injury to his interests. 
And out of this condition of society — a society of men of 
wealth and of leisure — ought to arise that patronage which 
shall give us men of learning of every kind. Litera- 
ture always demands two conditions, sympathy and the 
means of subsistence. Literature is a specialty as well 
as any one of the professions, and requires a single-hearted 
devotedness which is incompatible with an empty stomach 
and a starving family, equally with any other specialty. 
And for its highest encouragement it must have a fitting 
audience. Without the appreciation which comes from 
sympathy it lacks its life-blood. It withers and dies under 
neglect far more than under criticism. Scott has well 
struck this chord of feeling, when he brings in, in his lay, 
the old harper, entering the hall of J^ewark Castle, scorned 
and poor, timid and humble, looking for no sympathy in 
those degenerate days — ' 

He tried to tune his harp in vain — 
The pitying Duchess praised its chime, 
And gave him heart and gave him time, 
Till every string's according glee 
Was blended into harmony. 
But when he caught the measure wild, 
The old man raised his face and smiled. 
And lightened up his faded eye 
AVith all a poet's ecstacy. 

It is this sympathy of the heart that literature demands. 
Unless that be accorded, it cannot live and flourish, for 



16 

genius is always sensitive, and shrinks from tlie toucli of 
rudeness or contempt as a virtuous woman shrinks from 
licentiousness. What gave his inspiration to the "blind 
old man of Scio's rocky isle," but the sure consciousness 
that his own enthusiastic reverence for the heroes of Troy 
would find its perfect echo in the hearts of their descend- 
ants ? What was the ever present stimulus of the 
unrivalled masters of Greek composition but the vision 
of those audiences of the wise and the heroic men whom 
the games called up from all the settlements of the Hel- 
lenic race ? Literature imperatively requires those who 
will listen, and listen to sympathize. And our arrange- 
ment of society will furnish both men who have time to 
listen, and men who will possess a common interest with 
those who speak. And, therefore, do I see rising before 
me — in vision, but not, therefore, the less real — a lofty 
literature springing out of the very institution which is 
supposed to deaden our sensibilities and check the current 
of noble thought. A people having no peculiarities can 
have no original literature. There must be something 
more than the refinement arising out of wealth, and the 
patronage springing from a crowd. There must be some 
fount of music in the heart — some deep underlying cur- 
rent of national feeling which can be stirred to its depths 
by the tongue of the orator or the phrenzy of the poet — 
a chord in the people's heart, which is already in harmony 
with the genius which is to utter the feelings of that 
people. And where can 3'ou find such a chord in the 
hearts of men who are forever tied down to a miserable 
utilitarianism, having no elements but those of profit and 
loss, of calculation and reckoning? There must be some 
national bond. And we have that — we men of the South 
— which enkindles and cherishes the noblest traits of 
human nature, which brings into exercise the spirit of 



17 

dominion, the gentleness of niasterliood, tlie appreciation 
of liberty, the high sense of lionor, tlie loving heart and 
the open hand. Out of these Avill come a true literature. 
For by literature I do not mean the trash with which we 
are inundated by the publishing houses of the land, with 
w^hich our homes are polluted and our very souls disgusted 
— those trashy magazines — those novels without character, 
without sentiment, without wit, without even a decent 
plot — that poetry which has neither soul nor music — that 
mass of "pedagogik," as the Germans call it, which is 
worthless unless it be stolen. But I mean the outpouring 
of a nation's heart — the expression, in words, of those 
feelings which are dearer than life — the utterances which 
can never die, because they are the transcripts of feelings 
which are eternal. These outlive all the monuments of 
the people who has spoken through them. Such poetry 
as is uttered only once in a nation's history, an Iliad, a 
Vision, a song from the Bard of Avon ; such oratory as 
m.oves a people to the very bottom of its heart, and makes 
it rise above all interest and selfishness ; such philosophy 
as is planted upon eternal truth, and is assimilated into 
the very being of a people. All this will come in its day 
and generation, and we must work up to it. We must 
raise the pedestal upon which our prophet shall stand, 
when he shall arise to speak for us unto the nations. 

But a people may be long a great and cultured people 
before it shall develope a literature. Centuries elapsed 
before Rome had any, save what was the merest translation 
from the Greek. Cicero, in his minor tractates, intro- 
duces us to the great men of the Roman republic, but 
chiefly as men of action, or, if men of letters, scorning 
everything else save the forum and the popular assemblies. 
And this condition of things arose out of two causes, the 
2 



18 

one, because the spirit of tlie nation was sternly military, 
and all its talent turned naturally to action, tlie other, 
because it was overshadowed by the literature of ' the 
G-reeks. And when it did develope itself, it came out 
chiefly in oratory and political history. The really original 
writers of the Romans were her historians, Livy, Csesar, 
Sallust, but, above all, Tacitus, the profound statesman and 
deep observer of men. Yirgil was a mere copyist. The 
drama was unknown, save in translations or transfusions. 
The odes of Horace and the love songs of her minor poets, 
are her best things in that way. And even these were not 
produced until she had already culminated to her greatness, 
and the spirit of her institutions was fast exhaling. And 
just so with us. Precisely these causes are operating to 
keep us from an immediate literature, and, therefore, is it 
that I have asked you to discriminate between a high culture 
and a popular literature. All our talent has been hitherto 
thrown into action ; into war, into the struggle with 
nature, into politics in its highest sense, into oratory, into 
those things which leave no record of the men behind 
them, unless some Cicero arises who shall hand them 
down to immortality. And we, in like manner, are over- 
shadowed by the literature of our fatherland. The Anglo- 
Saxon race has made its utterances, and we must abide by 
them, until such time as some bard, in the distant future, 
shall sing the glory of our dominion, or utter the curse of 
prophecy over our ruthless invaders, ere he cast himself 
headlong to destruction.* 

■••• " Enough for me ; with joy I see 

The different dooms our fates assign : 

Be thine despair, and sceptr'd care 

To triumph and to die are mine," 

He spoke : and headlong from the mountain's height ^- 

Deep in the foaming tide he plunged to endless night. 

Oray's Bard. 



19 

Before I close this address, I would speak, if possi- 
ble, to the hearts of these 7011112: orentlemen who have 
done me the honor of bringing me here. I should con- 
sider my task unfinished unless I moved you to lofty 
purposes. The past, of which I have been speaking, is 
rapidly coming into your keeping, and with you will rest 
the glory of its preservation or the shame of its extinction. 
The high culture, the gentle refinement, the proud in- 
tegrity, the lofty attitude, which have descended from 
generation to generation, must not suffer eclipse from any 
indifference or carelessness of yours. You are to be the 
custodians, not only of the present, but of the past, not 
only of your own reputations, but of the reputations of 
your fathers. To fulfill this trust aright you must keep 
before you a lofty ideal. You must fix your hearts upon 
the highest excellence, not for the gratification of a paltry 
vanity, not from a craving after place or power, but that 
you may set forward truth and virtue in the land, and be 
worthy to have your names recorded among those who 
have advanced and blessed their kind. And this you will 
never do unless you pause upon the threshold of life and 
consider what it is — how glorious a thing it is to live — to 
be given the power of stamping yourself upon all who 
may come after you, of your own people and lineage — to 
be adopted as the child of other nations, perchance of the 
world — and then to carry all jour culture and use it for 
God throuo:h eternitv, if voii have used it for him in time ! 
"With this view, can you venture to leap ^\itli your 
imperfect knowledge, with your immature conceptions, 
with your little experience, into the current of life, and 
presume to give it direction ? This is the folly, this the 
shame of our times ; the young contending with the old 
and striving to push them from their places ; presumption 



20 

sneering at experience and mocking its counsels. Oli, 
for tlie sceptre of some Ulysses, to make the great tears 
flow down tlie clieeks of these Thersites', and whip them 
back to their own ignoble places ! The kings of men — 
those who are kings from mind, from culUire, from 
experience, from wisdom — must have their places in their 
time, and you must wait until you have proved yourselves 
worthy to wear their crowns. Be not eager to rush into 
the eye of the world. Dig deep the foundations of your 
fame, and when your moment comes, and it comes to 
every man, you may be prepared to do your part well in 
the storm of action. True wisdom is compounded of a 
variety of ingredients. Among these are some which 
the young but rarely possess, prudence, experience, a 
willingness to play the Fabian game of a masterly inac- 
tivity, and true wisdom is what you should always strive 
after. 

And I would advise you not to fritter away your abilities 
in attempting too much. It is well, during your collegiate 
life, that you should be passed through a general curricu- 
lum of study, but when you are entering upon life, choose 
carefully your purpose, and make that a specialty. If you 
choose law, then be a lawyer — one deserving of that honor- 
able title. If you choose medicine, then be a physician — 
one capable of holding in your hands the question of life 
and of death. If you choose divinity, then be a scribe, 
well instructed in all things pertaining to the relations of 
man and of God. If you turn to agriculture, then be a 
planter — one worthy to rule, direct, control. And this will 
not narrow your minds, for so linked is all knowledge, that 
very much of it is necessary for every specialty. Cicero 
has shown you in his works, how, while oratory was his 
specialty, he could yet adorn it with the highest philosophy 



21 

and elevate it above mere rhetoric and words. ^N'ow-a-days 
the names which are iUustrious are made illustrious by 
specialties. Even Humboldt failed when he attempted a 
Cosmos. Bring everything you can to bear upon your 
specialty, but never smother it under the appendages you 
gather around it. 

One thing more. Our colleges are the means by which 
you must maintain the culture of the past. They are the 
nurseries of our knowledge, the armories of our defence, 
the fountains of our literary excellence. Consider them 
as sacred. Bear anything, submit to anything, rather than 
disturb their peace and destroy their usefulness. You 
cannot be wronged by any injustice so much as you shall 
wrong yourselves by striking down authority in this seat 
of learning. Place yourselves firmly upon the principles 
of law and of order ; consider all as the enemies, not only 
of your individual benefit but as the enemies of the State, 
who shall even conceive rebellion against the discipline 
of your Alma Mater. The time is upon us, young gentle- 
men, when even our boys must strive to exercise the pru- 
dence and the wisdom of men — when there can be no more 
trifling with the march of events — when you must cultivate 
earnest thought and high resolve. Let not the escutcheon 
of this, our common Alma Mater, be any more stained 
with disorder and rebellion. To you is the temple of our 
learning committed, and if any one would lay sacrilegious 
hands upon it, count him your enemy, as well as the 
enemy of the whole South. Learning is a necessity for 
us all, and he who would plunge into anarchy this seat of 
civilization and culture, must be ready to bear his heavy 
reproach and answer for it to his country. 



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